Only In Utah!

[MikeC]

Dad Recording Football Game Mistaken For Sniper
SWAT Team Called In For Man On Roof

POSTED: 6:43 am CDT October 18, 2006

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MIDVALE, Utah -- A parent attempting to record a middle school football game from the school's roof was misidentified as a sniper, causing police to evacuate hundreds of people from the field.

James Kranz wanted to shoot video of his children playing on Saturday. But an officer spotted him climbing a ladder onto the school's roof with what looked like a rifle, said police Sgt. Gregg Olsen.

"An officer saw a man on top of the roof, walking around, pacing back and forth," Olsen said. "He was acting extremely suspicious."



It turned out to be a lawn chair that Kranz had with him -- not a gun.

A SWAT team was called in after Kranz was spotted on the roof.

Parent Andres Dominguez reported hearing someone screaming, "Shooting! Shooting!" when officials ordered the field cleared. He was skeptical, but followed fans off the field.

Another spectator spotted SWAT team members scanning the rooftop with rifles and figured it wasn't a false alarm.

"When I saw the police looking through their scopes, following this guy across the roof, I thought it was for real," Ron Watkins said.

Kranz jumped down from the roof and ran when officers tried to get him to drop to his knees and show his hands, Olsen said. Kranz told police he didn't respond because he didn't believe they were really officers.

Authorities ticketed Kranz for trespassing, then ordered him off the school grounds.

 

[jack.diamond]

With all the school troubles lately,I think the guy is lucky he didn't get plugged, running from the law the way he did. Probably his first mistake was assuming it would be okay to record the game from the roof without someone from the school knowing what was going on. Most fields have some grandstands that could be used. Stupidity on top of stupidity.

JD

 

[warpaint]

With all the school troubles lately,I think the guy is lucky he didn't get plugged, running from the law the way he did. Probably his first mistake was assuming it would be okay to record the game from the roof without someone from the school knowing what was going on. Most fields have some grandstands that could be used. Stupidity on top of stupidity.

JD

Granted. But, i am glad to see this type of response. Our children are at risk everyday. What would have been the media's take on this, had he really turned out to be a sniper set on revenge for some fantasized slight.

Better safe than sorry.

 

[jack.diamond]

With all the school troubles lately,I think the guy is lucky he didn't get plugged, running from the law the way he did. Probably his first mistake was assuming it would be okay to record the game from the roof without someone from the school knowing what was going on. Most fields have some grandstands that could be used. Stupidity on top of stupidity.

JD

Granted. But, i am glad to see this type of response. Our children are at risk everyday. What would have been the media's take on this, had he really turned out to be a sniper set on revenge for some fantasized slight.

Better safe than sorry.

Warpaint,

I agree with you on the response. I am just amazed at the shear stupidity of some people. If he was just going to record the flipping game, why did he run at the end?? :?:

JD

 

[VanC]

Maybe he was recording the cheerleaders instead of the game and didn't want his wife to find out.

 

[warpaint]

With all the school troubles lately,I think the guy is lucky he didn't get plugged, running from the law the way he did. Probably his first mistake was assuming it would be okay to record the game from the roof without someone from the school knowing what was going on. Most fields have some grandstands that could be used. Stupidity on top of stupidity.

JD

Granted. But, i am glad to see this type of response. Our children are at risk everyday. What would have been the media's take on this, had he really turned out to be a sniper set on revenge for some fantasized slight.

Better safe than sorry.

Warpaint,

I agree with you on the response. I am just amazed at the shear stupidity of some people. If he was just going to record the flipping game, why did he run at the end?? :?:

JD

Who knows, Jack. Afterall he is from Utah!!

Seriuosly, who knows better than this guy, what he was thinking at the time. Odviously, he wasn't thinking real clearly when he decided to trespass to film the game.

 

[Ricker]

It is sad times but I agree with the TX schools.

Students taught to fight back if gunman invades

By JEFF CARLTON
Associated Press


BURLESON — Youngsters in a suburban Fort Worth school district are being taught not to sit there like good boys and girls with their hands folded if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush him and hit him with everything they got — books, pencils, legs and arms.

"Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success," said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson schools.

That kind of fight-back advice is all but unheard of among schools, and some fear it will get children killed.

But school officials in Burleson said they are drawing on the lessons learned from a string of disasters such as Columbine in 1999 and the Amish schoolhouse attack in Pennsylvania last week.

The school system in this working-class suburb of about 26,000 is believed to be the first in the nation to train all its teachers and students to fight back, Browne said.

At Burleson — which has 10 schools and about 8,500 students — the training covers various emergencies, such as tornadoes, fires and situations where first aid is required. Among the lessons: Use a belt as a sling for broken bones, and shoelaces make good tourniquets.




Students are also instructed not to comply with a gunman's orders, and to take him down.

Browne recommends students and teachers "react immediately to the sight of a gun by picking up anything and everything and throwing it at the head and body of the attacker and making as much noise as possible. Go toward him as fast as we can and bring them down."

Response Options trains students and teachers to "lock onto the attacker's limbs and use their body weight," Browne said. Everyday classroom objects, such as paperbacks and pencils, can become weapons.

"We show them they can win," he said. "The fact that someone walks into a classroom with a gun does not make them a god. Five or six seventh-grade kids and a 95-pound art teacher can basically challenge, bring down and immobilize a 200-pound man with a gun."

The fight-back training parallels the change in thinking that has occurred since Sept. 11, when United Flight 93 made it clear that the usual advice during a hijacking — Don't try to be a hero, and no one will get hurt — no longer holds. Flight attendants and passengers are now encouraged to rush the cockpit.

Similarly, women and youngsters are often told by safety experts to kick, scream and claw they way out during a rape attempt or a child-snatching.

In 1998 in Oregon, a 17-year-old high school wrestling star with a bullet in his chest stopped a rampage by tackling a teenager who had opened fire in the cafeteria. The gunman killed two students, as well as his parents, and 22 other were wounded.

Hilda Quiroz of the National School Safety Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in California, said she knows of no other school system in the country that is offering fight-back training, and found the strategy at Burleson troubling.

"If kids are saved, then this is the most wonderful thing in the world. If kids are killed, people are going to wonder who's to blame," she said. "How much common sense will a student have in a time of panic?"

Terry Grisham, spokesman for the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department, said he, too, had concerns, though he had not seen details of the program.

"You're telling kids to do what a tactical officer is trained to do, and they have a lot of guns and ballistic shields," he said. "If my school was teaching that, I'd be upset, frankly."

Some students said they appreciate the training.

"It's harder to hit a moving target than a target that is standing still," said 14-year-old Jessica Justice, who received the training over the summer during freshman orientation at Burleson High.

William Lassiter, manager of the North Carolina-based Center for Prevention of School Violence, said past attacks indicate that fighting back, at least by teachers and staff, has its merits.

"At Columbine, teachers told students to get down and get on the floors, and gunmen went around and shot people on the floors," Lassiter said. "I know this sounds chaotic and I know it doesn't sound like a great solution, but it's better than leaving them there to get shot."

Lassiter questioned, however, whether students should be included in the fight-back training: "That's going to scare the you-know-what out of them."

Most of the freshman class at Burleson's high school underwent instruction during orientation, and eventually all Burleson students will receive some training, even the elementary school children.

"We want them to know if Miss Valley says to run out of the room screaming, that is exactly what they need to do," said Jeanie Gilbert, district director of emergency management. She said students and teachers should have "a fighting chance in every situation."

"It's terribly sad that when I get up in the morning that I have to wonder what may happen today either in our area or in the nation," Gilbert said. "Something that happens in Pennsylvania has that ripple effect across the country."

Burleson High Principal Paul Cash said he has received no complaints from parents about the training. Stacy Vaughn, the president of the Parent-Teacher Organization at Norwood Elementary in Burleson, supports the program.

"I feel like our kids should be armed with the information that these types of possibilities exist," Vaughn said.